This may be a controversial opinion, but I do believe that a certain amount of surveillance is effective. It worked in London. It worked in New York.
But that is "using" technology. Not "crippling" it. I am sympathetic to the needs of the state, and I believe there should be some attempt to meet these needs, but with oversight, and with proper procedures and protections.
It's one thing to say James Bond doesn't have time to call back to 'M' to get permission to plant a bug but James isn't a massively industrialised automated spying operation. I'd give him sole dispensation on national security grounds but that doesn't scale up to the level that GCHQ and NSA were doing. The more actors involved the greater the possibilities for systematic abuse and that has to be acknowledged, and those questions answered.
I don't think it's controversial - one of the reasons people oppose domestic surveillance is because it's effective, if it weren't effective, its abuse wouldn't really be a problem.
But law enforcement already has ways of doing its job without getting new surveillance powers. They can find people on Tor, they can pay for exploits to get into cellphones, and there always seems to be obvious (in hindsight) dots that could or should have been connected, leading to a terrorist plot, which rarely seem to involve encrypted communications.
I want terrorists stopped, but i'm not convinced that governments can't stop terrorists even with the existence of encryption.
But that is "using" technology. Not "crippling" it. I am sympathetic to the needs of the state, and I believe there should be some attempt to meet these needs, but with oversight, and with proper procedures and protections.
It's one thing to say James Bond doesn't have time to call back to 'M' to get permission to plant a bug but James isn't a massively industrialised automated spying operation. I'd give him sole dispensation on national security grounds but that doesn't scale up to the level that GCHQ and NSA were doing. The more actors involved the greater the possibilities for systematic abuse and that has to be acknowledged, and those questions answered.